Are elective cesareans safer than vaginal birth?
By Danell Swim
February 24, 2008
Last year, a team of Canadian researchers published a major study comparing nearly 50,000 such C-sections over the past 14 years with more than two million vaginal births.
The study suggests C-sections are a lot riskier than vaginal births.
For example, women in the C-section group were nearly five times more likely to suffer a heart attack than those who planned a vaginal birth.
But the actual difference was tiny: 1.9 per 1,000 women in the C-section group compared to 0.4 per 1,000 births in the vaginal birth group.
Overall, the study found 2.7 per cent of women who had “planned” C-sections suffered some type of severe complication, such as a bacterial infection, hemorrhage or hysterectomy.
That compares to just 0.9 per cent of those who planned a vaginal birth, including some who ended up having an emergency C-section.
Lots of interesting information in this article.
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